To Go On
by Latent Lullaby
Summary: Another battle fought is another battle lost. How does one keep from losing hope, how does a person unfailingly know what to fight for? Inu/Kag


To Go On

One-shot

By Zeldagurl

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha. I do however own a pretty blankie with his face on it, I know I've mentioned it a lot, but does that still count?

We had retreated again.

Naraku had sent us reeling backwards again, dripping our defeat in blood and the unshed tears that each of us gathered for another day, another time.

Sango and Miroku walk ahead of us, less injured, though still needing a place to recupperate. I walk behind with Inuyasha, trying to ignore the blood dripping along the dirt of the road. He leans on me, heavily, although I know he is still trying to walk by himself. He stumbles and I strain to keep him upright. He doesn't look at me, but keeps his eyes concentrated on the ground. He walks on and his hard breathing persists erratically, sometimes loud and sometimes soft.

Normally, Kilala might have carried Inuyasha, but she's injured too. No poisons this time, but she has been cut from her leg to the middle of her belly. As damage control, Sango holds her closely in her smaller form, and no one begrudges Kilala her small comfort, nor Inuyasha his trail of blood leading to wherever we go.

Sango's ankle is cut, and Miroku weakly pulls himself along, letting Shippou encourage him to take the next step down the road. Sango walks alone, without encouragement, but it's hard. I know she wants to be with Miroku, but she would only help him stumble with her own injury. I want to help them, but Inuyasha's labored breathing keeps me anchored to his side.

I am uninjured physically. The rest of me--my injured pride, my sense of hope, happiness and the very core of my being--is shaken again. It will take many nights to repair my will, and to forget the pain on my friends faces.

"Almost there, Inuyasha," I whisper quietly, sneaking a glance at him as he limps beside me. He doesn't say anything, but I know what he's thinking. We've failed again, and the reasons are sitting there staring us in the face. Sometimes it's easier to let our minds wander along those lines, to contemplate our shortcomings, and to wonder why we ever tried. But sometimes things aren't that simple; sometimes we just have to think of our survival, and nothing else.

I force my mind back to the present as Sango turns to reassure us that the place we had picked out isn't far away. Her lips form words, and I hear them, but do not comprehend any tone of comfort intended from them. It's stupid; we pick out a hiding place before we go off to save the day from Naraku, and we all hope that we won't have to use it, but we always do. It's depressing. A clumsy monotony that we've been holding onto for the most of three years.

The hut is in sight, and Inuyasha grits his teeth, making a more forcible effort to stand on his own, at least to the hut. And for a few seconds, his weight is completely off me, and he limps a step. His pride, however broken, is still at stake, so I let him. Our friends are already inside, most likely collapsing on the beds we've arranged and reaching for the extra supplies I've stocked there. It's a routine we know through and through.

Inuyasha lets me go in first and proceeds after me, holding the wall for support now that I've gone. He steps to the bed and falls to it, jarring his injuries further. I say nothing.

This scene will never leave my mind, if not for its repetition, than it's meaning to us all.

I kneel next to Inuyasha, seeing that Sango is already wrapping and treating her ankle, and Miroku is resting in his allotted bed with Shippo and Kilala snuggled up next to him. I reach for the antiseptic and the ointment that is already covered in red fingerprints from countless times before.

Inuyasha makes no sounds of pain. I carefully wrap a bandage around his middle and when I'm done, he lays down. I'm not sure if he's given up, or if he's just regrouping, the way he always does when times come to this. I know that soon he'll want to talk about what we did wrong, he'll swear and curse and take his frustrations out on all of us.

The cycle will repeat itself over and over again, until one side is extinguished.

Later, everyone is asleep. I can't seem to close my eyes. I think I wish that it would get easier to lose, to accept rejection, and to bounce back, after all of these times that I've weathered terrible things; but it never does...

Why does Naraku get away with everything that he does? He kills people. He steals everything from people who have nothing . I'll bet that he never loses sleep over all of those faces, all of those innocent men, women and children who died in his grasp. I don't think I'll ever understand why he suceeds and we don't.

I close my eyes and imagine all of the faces and all of the bodies that I've buried, all of the prayers I've offered and all of the tears I've let fall. Naraku doesn't care; he's wrapped up in his mind. Naraku sits in his castles, thinking and festering and fantacizing of killing and torturing us. He calls his puppets and he spreads his deceptions like cobwebs. I don't understand how someone could be like him, but it's not the first time I've wondered this, and it certainly won't be the last.

I roll over and face Inuyasha, who is laying a foot away, almost beside me. I don't want to wake him, just watch him for a moment. I miss moments like these when I can look at him without fear, when all of the world is silent and small behind me.

It seems so normal to me now, I wish that things could always be like this.

What would it be like if we were just... Inuyasha and Kagome? A boy and a girl. The thought is almost too tempting.

If the fate of Japan didn't rest on our shoulders, would we all be different? Sango would have her family and her village, and Miroku might just be a lecherous monk, and if they met... I wonder if everything would be the same between them. I'd like to think that Shippo's dad would still be around.

Because the Shikon jewel would never have split...I...I never would have been here to split it. I sneek a guilty glance at the sleeping kit.

It goes without saying that Inuyasha and I would never have met. He would probably be a human, living with a normal Kikyo. He might have been much happier without Naraku, and without me.

And would I have been happier? Things certainly would have been normal enough. I probably would have fallen head over heels for Hojo, gone to college and became a part of Japan's vast workforce, having kids and growing old. I think I would have gone willingly into that life if I had never tasted more.

I close my eyes and exhale softly after a small glance at Inuyasha.

Going along these lines, my mind wanders into the same place that it comes to rest, every night that I wonder about my destiny. It's useless to think about the past and see in my mind's eye how things might have been. I know what I have and what we've earned with all of this failure and danger.

But I know that we don't have the will to go on, at least not tonight. We are tired and we are broken, angry and licking our wounds, promising revenge. And it seems that this is what our life is comprised of, this anger, this endless hostility, senseless murder that we have to get past every day. _I_ don't have the will to get up just to see that again.

Inuyasha is coated with a fine sheen of sweat, still and tense. Even though I don't want to get up, I do. I grab the bowl of water I've left there and take the rag that's been soaking there. I hope that he doesn't have a fever. I mop his forehead and all around his face stopping at the base of his neck. He cracks his eyes open and presses his lips together.

"Sorry." I say tiredly, distinctly reminded of that time with the Spider-heads. It's been so long since then. I was so innocent. I can't believe the gaping difference I see in myself from then to now.

"S'alright," He grunts softly and closes his eyes. It seems like he's going to sleep, but I know better. He never does.

"Are you feeling okay?"

He shifts slightly. "Yeah, I'm just sore." He's such a little lier, sometimes it kills me. It's one of those things about Inuyasha that I've gotten used to. But I know it's for a good reason. He lies. The sky is blue. Big deal.

"What about you? Can't you sleep?" He tilts his head towards me.

"I'm just thinking about things." I excuse my lack of sleep easily. I wonder if he's going to ask me about it. He probably wants to try to fall back asleep. He won't, though. It seems he cares more about me than sleep tonight.

"About what?" He whispers.

I lay back down and scoot closer to him, mindful of the other occupants of our little recovery hut. He's a little surprised at my forward motions, but doesn't do anything about it.

"Today." I say quietly.

He makes a sound in his throat and turns back to stare at the ceiling. There are no easy answers to questions about what happened out there and he knows it. But no matter what, I love him in his silence and in his answers. I follow them willingly.

"There isn't much to say." He admits.

And it's true, there isn't. We failed, but we're going to try again, and someday we'll get him. We'll defeat him. I've heard the same explanation for why we've failed, over and over for the better part of four years. For all of the reverence it held and everything defeating Naraku represented, I don't know if I believe we can do it anymore.

"I wish things weren't always like this." I feel his eyes upon me. "I don't know what to take as good or bad anymore because... it's like he's always winning." I get to the very core of my problem. How do you keep hope alive? How do you stay within your dreams when everything comes to break them? These were the questions deep in my mind.

We are silent for a moment or two, listening to the breathing of our friends.

"So... You think... you're losing hope?" He must be as surprised as I am, I know.

"Maybe..."

I know that we'll never give up. And I know that I am going to stick this through to the end, but that's not the issue. I am completely fine with spending years more on this mission. I am devoted to it, this hopeless battle. I've given too much up to give up or to give in to Naraku.

But getting up every morning and reaffirming my reasons for the life I live, is the hardest part. I wish that it wasn't getting so hard to stand there and talk with hope to my friends about defeating Naraku. It's painful, it hurts, and it's starting to feel delusional.

"Inuyasha." He turns slightly at the sound of my voice, so I know he's listening.

"How do you keep going? Especially after days like this..." I trail off. Of course, I know that Inuyasha might not have much of an answer for me. Since asking Inuyasha why he doesn't give up would be like asking a tomato why its' red, you'd probably get an 'I dunno' out of either one, assuming tomatoes could talk...

He expelled a breath and blinked at the ceiling. I know that I make him like this. Before me, the answers were always pure and simple and worth one-word replies. It's my gift to him, maybe the smallest of differences that I make in his life. I like that he has to think about things he says to me.

"I don't know." He sighed. Of course. I knew he was going to say that. But still, I wait for him, giving him a little time to think on it. He settles into himself a little more and stares at the ceiling contemplatingly.

"Do you ever feel like giving up?" He asks, peering over at me. I nod and purse my lips slightly, waiting for him to continue. His eyes rest on me for a few seconds before he goes back to his staring match with the ceiling.

"I do too. Sometimes I find myself wondering what I'm doing here." He says quietly, as if he's admitting an embarrising secret. Like as if he just admitted he fell in love with someone.

I look at him, surprised. I guess everyone assumes that Inuyasha is too stupid to comprehend things like why and how. And he doesn't do much to discourage anyone from that idea, but it surprises me how deep he really is, even beyond his basic baggage.

He takes my silence and runs with it. "I wonder why all of this is my problem." He takes a breath. "Why should I care about Naraku? Before all of this, I lived my life without battles and undead people and stupid wolves." It amazes me that he can insult Koga, even when he's really being serious, in a completely unrelated conversation. We haven't even seen the guy for two monthes...

"So did I." I smile weakly.

He smiles too, and I feel the slight tension dissolve.

"It's easy to think that way. I wonder about what I might be doing now, if I wasn't here doing this."

He leaves a question, unspoken, but poignant in its silence. He's wondering if I think about the same things, I know he's afraid that I don't want to be with him anymore. I have to fight for my time with Inuyasha, for his thoughts and his life. But even though life is shaky with him, I know I have his devotion. We are friends, very good friends...If only that were good enough for me.

"My life would be perfectly normal. Or rather, it was perfect for me." I see Inuyasha flinch out of the corner of my eye. "But I'm not sure if I could ever be satisfied with such a boring place in the world, day in and day out, now that I've been here." I do a small amount of damage control, because I know exactly what he's asking himself now.

"And what would you be doing? Great and terrible things?"

"I wouldn't be doing much of anything. I'd probably be hunting all of the time, hanging around in a forest like a regular demon should," He snorts.

But of course, that life would be lonely. He would have no one, except the people who hurt him. I shift against him and feel my heart swell for him. It does that sometimes, for reasons that I can't come up with. I've gotten used to things like that happening around Inuyasha.

"But you're here."

"But I'm here." He agrees, expelling a breath.

We stop talking for a few moments, in that way that you don't have to talk to know how the other person is feeling. The answers aren't coming, and I know it's going to take a lot of thinking on both of our parts to find out why.

Our eyes catch and we bare our souls to each other in the only way we know how. He stares at me and smiles his sad, strong smile, that small one that's only regretful for a moment before leaving his greatest strength.

It buoys me.

Time passes and I feel calm, now staring up at the ceiling of the hut. I feel a cool breeze from the doorway, apparently the night is nice and cool. The wind is like a balm to all of us here in this musty shack. It always comes, in some shape or form, to smooth our feathers and kiss our hopes to live for another day.

I know that we'll get back up.

It is something unsaid. Inuyasha will never be able to explain to me, why he gets up every morning ready to die. I just know that I'm there with him. And I know there's a reason, the great big reason that I'm always pondering over, just to find that it's the simplest one of all.

My whole life will supply it. From the warm moment tonight, lying here in this hut, to the last moment of my life. I will ponder it before and after, and I will still be able to fill my head with good reasons why I'm doing what I do.

"Kagome, I think it's time to change my bandages." Inuyasha squirms. I sit up and look at him, peeking at the bloodstain that is ominously growing larger and larger.

"Oh you, you're just like a baby." I giggle and reach for my backpack. Inuyasha makes a face.

"I'm not a baby." He says stubbornly. It takes him a few seconds to compose a comback, so much so that I doubt it's coming, but rest assured, it comes. "You're a baby for comlaining about it."

"Who said I was complaining? Maybe I enjoy mopping up all of your blood." I make a face at him as I unravel a new roll of bandages. "By the way, did you know that you bleed like a river?"

"Oh well, if that's how you feel, I guess I'll think twice before I jump in front of anything for you!" Inuyasha is actually getting riled up, it's so easy to get him mad, I feel a little bad for doing it purposefully. I glance over at our companions and wonder belatedly whether we should have kept it down a little bit. I see movement and laugh in my head.

Too late.

"Inuyasha. Shut up!" Miroku growls from the other side of the hut. I grin as Inuyasha pouts, most likely plotting revenge on me for getting him yelled at.

And now, I have another one of my reasons. It's to pat Inuyasha reassuringly on the head with a quiet 'sorry' and watch his face go red in the pale light of the moon.

It's so that I can protect times like these, that I get up everyday with a heart full of hope.

My worries and despair will come back to me, when we fail again. I'm sure that this is not the end of it. The human heart is weak, and prone to believing the worst. I know that's one lesson that my enemy has taught me. But I also know that the human heart is strong too. We are capable of blind hope, in the face of odds that really do suck.

And the hope, the fun, the laughs, the fights and the love... All of those beautiful things that make life worthwhile, are worth the pain.

I will fight for them and for my comrades with everything that is in me because of the cost that must be paid, only by me. Only by Inuyasha. Only by Sango and Miroku, and only by Shippo and Kilala.

That, after all, is my reason.

Authors note: Ah, I started this a long time ago, and now I've finally finished it. It feels good to be back on track again. This will actually most likely be one of my last fictions for Inuyasha. The series ended a long time ago, and just today I read the ending of the manga.

In my opinion, it fizzled a story that once had awesome potential. Inuyasha was once at the heart of many anime fans, because of it's characters and because of it's originality. But I think that was lost somehow. It's just like with any fanfiction or story. If it goes on for too long, and you stay within it for too long, you might lose what made you start it all along.

Inuyasha was my first anime, and I grieve the passing of a story that could have been so much more. Though for all of it's drawbacks, I still love it.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the one-shot, those of you who are still reading. I have one more that I might finish, but otherwise I'll most likely be going into some other animes. I'm a picky girl, so it'll probably be a real big, publicly approved one, like Fruits Basket or Bleach. If you're a fan of my writing, I hope you'll stay with me through other ventures, if not, then I have to say that it's been a beautiful ride. (Dewey Cox! I love you!)

Editor's Note:

I love Beta-ing for Zeldagurl!! Woo! She manages to breathe life into the sadly flat characters in InuYasha. Read the awesomeness and love it people! Or I'll shove you down Shessomaru's hugely baggy pants! (Which wouldn't be a bad thing...)

Rant:

Ugh. The ending of InuYasha had me at one crying out in horror and laughing my head off. I won't spoil it for you who have yet to read the ending, but it most definately was different from the anime, and for once I like the anime ending better. I know Zeldagurl was so poetic in how she described the ending of InuYasha, but I like to be frank: It sucked. It sounded like a bad fanfiction. The end.

Sincerely, Charm and Strange


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